Company
by Dana Holmes
Summary: Sequel to Anything But Innocent. Voldemort shook his head slowly. "I have the emotions of a teenager, the shattered soul of an old man, and the mind of a dead man." He took a long drink of the poisoned tea. "What am I going to do when you die?"


Title: Company  
><span>Author:<span> Dragon_of_Venus  
><span>Pairings:<span> Harry/Voldemort, mentions of Harry/Ginny  
><span>Rating:<span> NC-17  
><span>Word-Count:<span> 4,058  
><span>Master:<span> Master List: My one-shot Master-List is here.  
><span>Summary:<span> Sequel to Anything But Innocent. Voldemort shook his head slowly. "I have the emotions of a teenager, the shattered soul of an old man, and the mind of a dead man." He took a long drink of the poisoned tea. "What am I going to do when you die?"  
><span>Warnings:<span> Arguably adultery, a corpse, mature language.  
><span>Contains:<span> Two adult men having anal sex, significant age differences, rough sex, and discussions with religious undertones.  
><span>Disclaimer:<span> Harry Potter and all related characters, settings, and ideas belong to J.K. Rowling, not to me. Receive no money for writing this or any other Harry Potter related piece.  
><span>Author's Note:<span> There may or may not be more of these to come after this one. I really haven't decided yet. In either case, enjoy!

Harry sucked in a mouthful of air and woke up just in time to stop himself from screaming. It was just after two in the morning. Ginny was lying next to him, blissfully asleep. Everything was quiet.

Harry _had_ to do something about these nightmares.

They came with the job, though. He'd been warned about them when he'd first taken over: His predecessor, poor old William Daedalus, had kicked off his retirement by giving Harry his entire, rather large, chest full of relaxation potions, dreamless sleep potions, blood-pressure stabilizing potions, and other potions that Harry wasn't sure of the affects of, then gleefully checking himself into St. Mungo's for half a year. The story was still going around that Amelia Bones, who'd never held with just medicating away all of her problems, had panic attacks so regularly in the years before her retirement that there had been serious talk of giving her therapist an office down the hall.

And now Harry was waking up every fucking night, about to scream bloody murder over nothing. On some nights, he could go back to sleep afterwards. This wasn't going to be one of those nights, if his racing heart and the panicked voice in his head telling him to check his family _now_ were anything to go by. He turned to Ginny and pulled the covers off her chest somewhat guiltily. He stared for a moment, until he was _certain_ he saw her breasts rise and fall as she breathed, then he carefully covered her again, got out of bed, and left the room.

Lily's room was right across the hall. Her door was locked, as usual, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. A simple unlocking charm had him silently pushing the door open. His eyes strained in the darkness, staring at the lump in the bed that he was reasonably certain was his daughter. He was too far away to see her breathe, but after a moment she rolled over, and that was enough for Harry. He relocked the door as he left.

Albus was next door, with his door cracked and a lamp on. Harry wondered for half a second what Albus was doing up this late, but then Harry nudged the door slightly further open and found his younger son drooling on his potions homework. Harry sighed, half carried the boy into bed, and then turned the light off and slipped out of the room. Albus was too dazed to even realize how late it was, let alone ask Harry what he was doing up.

James wasn't there. He'd left school the year before and immediately headed for London with Louis. James was working as an assistant to Morgan Ollivander, who'd inherited the business from his father very shortly after the war. James' ultimate goal was to set up his own wand-making shop someday, and though doing so would mean leaving England, Harry was supportive. Harry walked downstairs and looked at the old clock they'd had made after Lily's birth. It was a rather like the grandfather clock near the kitchen of the Burrow. James' picture was settled on "At Work," and Harry could only assume that he and Morgan had gone out to collect wand cores. James had mentioned once that it was easier to find unicorns at night.

Harry collapsed into an armchair and sighed. His heart rate was slowing. The horrifying images and stories were fading from his mind, being slowly replaced by the light taps of rain falling on the window outside. He considered working on one of his cases for a moment before he remembered that his God-forsaken _cases_ were causing these nightmares to begin with. He decided to make himself some coffee and have a look at his old photo albums. When he settled down to the sound and smell of brewing coffee and began to reminisce about the trouble they'd gone to find Ginny that _perfect_strapless gown and to keep it clean while five very messy nieces and nephews ran around on their wedding day, he felt almost instantly better. In fact, by the time he saw himself strapping James into his car seat (There were very few _safe_magical ways to transport infants. They made attachments to broomsticks, but Harry and Hermione both had always been rather mistrustful of those, and portkeys, apparation, and floo powder were all horrible accidents waiting to happen with a child under the age of ten.) to take him home from the hospital, his eyes were quite heavy...

"What are _you_ doing here?"

That voice. Harry recognized that voice, but only barely. It was male. Not Ginny or Lily, then. Definitely not Albus or James or Ron...

Harry opened his eyes. The room was obviously well lit, but from his facedown position on the couch, all he could see were his own arms and elegant white material. He sat up slowly.

The sight of Hepzibah Smith's living room was almost enough to make Harry's head spin. It was so cluttered with antiques of every kind imaginable that in the chaos of it all, he almost didn't notice her lifeless body in the chair across from him.

There was a hollow thumping sound behind Harry.

"No, really," Voldemort said, "I didn't invite you."

Another thump, and Harry turned around.

Voldemort was resting his head on a wooden bookshelf, but Harry hadn't _seen_ him hit himself.

"I don't particularly _want_ you here tonight."

Harry shrugged. "I need what little sleep I can get. I'm afraid we'll both just have to put up with the company."

Voldemort grinned. "Not sleeping well any more?"

"Don't flatter yourself. It's got nothing to do with you."

The smile didn't fall.

"And you?"

Voldemort laughed. "Not sleeping at all."

"Tired?"

Voldemort shrugged and walked around the sofa to sit down next to Harry. "Not particularly."

"Then that doesn't sound so bad."

Voldemort rolled his eyes. "Then trade with me, Harry. I miss nightmares."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

Voldemort rubbed his arms distractedly, but with the subdued air of one who knew it wasn't going to do much good. "I'm not easily frightened, Harry. Even as quite a small child, I woke up from most of my nightmares laughing. And things_happen_ in nightmares. If you'd spend a while in this _horrible_ place, you'd understand." He shivered slightly when he said the word _horrible_, and Harry couldn't help but feel the slightest pang of sympathy for him.

It was _hard_ sometimes, and much harder with this one than with one from the diary. Harry had to admit that. He wasn't looking at the red-eyed man with slits for nostrils who had killed his parents and tried more than once to kill him. He was looking at a fucking _teenager_ who needed a haircut and apparently hadn't quite mastered any laundering spells. He had brown eyes that wouldn't meet Harry's green ones, and very human looking skin that was covered with goosebumps. The father in Harry had to fight not to tell him to move closer to the fire.

_The hundred-year-old tosser would_**_love_**_that..._ Harry thought, even as Voldemort's voice (and yet the voice an entirely different person) whispered the words _"...but mostly sixteen..."_ in his memory.

Still, there were few signs that Voldemort was not _completely_ innocent that were as hard to miss as Hepzibah Smith's body.

"It's not really a nightmare if you find it funny, is it?" Harry glanced at the fireplace for a moment and realized that the flames weren't moving. It looked painted on, and if it weren't for Harry being able to see the light it was giving off and feel its heat, he'd probably have believed it was.

Voldemort shrugged. "I think they did frighten me a bit, when I was still asleep. Then I'd wake up and realize that I was alright and... and there would never be much I _could_ do but laugh."

"A bit like life," Harry said, smiling slightly.

Voldemort hummed flatly. "Rather the opposite of life. Take a dead man's word for it." He didn't smile. "Would you like some tea?" Without waiting for an answer, he picked the cup up from the coffee table in front of them and pressed it into Harry's hands. "Here. You can have mine. I'll take that one." He to the cup sitting next to Hepzibah Smith. "It won't hurt me."

Harry stared down at it. "How do you take your tea?"

"With lemon, if I remember correctly."

"You haven't had a sip of it in the last twenty-five years?"

Voldemort shrugged. He picked up the tea and headed back to the sofa.

"Sugar?" Harry asked.

"You realize what year we're in, don't you?"

"Not exactly."

Voldemort laughed. "What year do you think it is?"

"I'm fairly certain that it's _either_ 1946 _or_ 2024."

"And there's really no difference." Voldemort sat down next to him and sipped the tea.

Harry took a drink of his. It was rather weak all together, as though the teabag had been reused a few times, but it was certainly vaguely lemon flavored. It burned his tongue slightly, and Harry blew on it to cool it down. "Can it be one for you and the other for me?"

"What makes you think I know?" Voldemort said, looking unenthusiastically at the poisoned tea before taking another sip as though he were hoping it would get better. He was frowning when he lowered the cup. His lips moved silently for a minute, then he spoke. "I think it's probably 2024 for the both of us. Can you taste that?"

"What?"

"The tea. Can you taste it?"

"Er... yes...?"

"Good. This place seems to be... rather _outside_ of time. It doesn't _ever_ change. You'll notice the fire—"

"I've already noticed."

"—Right. But when you come... I think I remember... I think I _experience_ these visits chronologically. You look older than you did last time."

Harry nodded. He must have been only thirty-five or so the last time he saw this particular Voldemort.

"Good... I think. Perhaps. You'll die someday, won't you? How's the tea? Hot?"

Harry blew on it again and took another sip. "It was. And y—"

"It cooled down?"

"It's cool enough if I blow on it."

Voldemort nodded. "And you'll die some day."

"Yes."

"Not soon? You don't have anything, do you?"

"... I have a lot of enemies...?"

"You do pretty well against those." Voldemort shrugged. "I've been working on a theory."

"What's that?"

Voldemort looked like he was about to respond for a moment, but then he stopped. He bent over and dry-heaved four of five times before sitting back up.

"Are you alright?" Harry said, standing up and moving toward a trashcan.

"Don't bother," Voldemort said. "I won't actually do it."

Harry believed him. He returned to the sofa quietly, without the trashcan. "Stop drinking this..." he said, pulling Hepzibah Smith's tea away from Voldemort.

"It's not the poison. I'm just not... _well_ tonight. That's why I didn't want you here."

"The poison can't be helping."

"The poison doesn't do _anything_ to me!" Voldemort let out a frustrated sigh, grabbed the cup, and downed the rest of it in one. "I can't even _taste_ it. Nor that one." He nodded to the other tea. "They both just burn."

"They—"

"They won't cool down. I've blown on them. I've let them sit for—What did you say it's been?—Twenty five _years_. I even put one of them in the freezer once. I walked back in here and it was sitting right where it always is. Oh, and speaking of that!" He held up the cup of poisoned tea, angling it slightly to give Harry a better view. It had refilled itself.

Voldemort sighed. "Sometimes I sit here and drink them both repeatedly just to feel them burn my mouth. I think I prefer it to the cold."

"Cold?"

Voldemort nodded. "It's rather—It _was_ rather cool that night. The walk here from the shop isn't so bad, but I was shivering by the time I made it. It's warm enough in here, but... You know that stinging feeling you get when you've been out in the cold and suddenly you're somewhere very warm?"

Harry nodded.

"For twenty-five _years_, Harry." He sighed. "Everything here is exactly as it was in the moment she died. Forever. The tea was hot then, so it's hot now. I don't have any actual _breath_ to cool it down with, I can't move it, and no time ever really passes here, so nothing changes. No matter how long I sit by that fire, I'm still cold. Not that I can ever _tell_ how long it's been, since you're the only thing that ever changes around here and you only visit once a decade or so."

Harry, who suddenly felt as though he were being scolded by an elderly relative rather than offering his mortal enemy a shoulder to cry on, barely stopped himself from apologizing.

Voldemort laughed slightly. "And you... I never quite recognize you, if you believe that."

"Harry Potter?" Harry offered. "I—"

"—Killed me, among other things. Yes, I _know_ that. I just don't _recognize_ it."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"When you look at... Oh, who _do_ you look at? Your mudblood friend, let's say. Are you still in touch—"

"Hermione. And yes."

"—When you look at your mudblood friend, you don't have to _think_ about whether or not you know her, do you?"

"No."

"And you don't have the same emotional reaction to seeing a stranger as you do to seeing her, do you?"

"Of course not."

Voldemort nodded. "When I look at you, I _feel_ like you're a stranger. Part of me _knows_ exactly who you are, what you've done to me, what I've done to you, why you're here, and how it all started, but another part of me wants to put his wand to your throat and demand your name."

Harry was quiet. He couldn't say he understood the feeling.

"It happens quite often," Voldemort said, closing his eyes. "I can't picture you when you're gone. You're hardly unique in that respect, though." He sighed. "I think about Bellatrix Lestrange a lot. She's in Hell now, and I think she thinks that's my fault. I think _I_ think that's my fault, but maybe it isn't. I can _feel_ her suffering through the mark, but I can't picture her. Isn't that _strange_, Harry? I _know_ everything there is to know about her. I could describe her to you: Long black hair, dark eyes, very pale skin, sharp features, skinny... She spent thirteen years in Azkaban for me. Married, but not very good at it. Her husband's the same way... Rodolphus... Rodolphus... Brown hair. Reddish complexion. Also rather tall. Muscular when he was young; He was a beater in school... Nothing. I was at his _christening_ and I can't picture him. I quite literally knew the man _his entire life_ and I can't picture him... His father was one of my oldest followers. I can picture _him_, but not as I last knew him. I _know_ he was at least in his mid-fifties when he died, probably older. I spoke to him the night that I fell... but I can only think of him as a teenager. I have vague memories of what he looked like as an _eleven_-year-old, too, but not a single clear memory where he's a day over twenty."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, not sure how much he meant it. "Your memory was fine before you died?"

"I think my memory is fine now," Voldemort said, his brown eyes flicking open. "The trouble is that it's not _my_ memory._This_ me wouldn't be able to picture those people, would he? _He never knew them._" Voldemort shook his head slowly. "I have the emotions of a teenager, the shattered soul of an old man, and the mind of a dead man." He took a long drink of the poisoned tea. "What am I going to do when you die?"

Harry shrugged. "Whatever you're doing now when I'm not here, I suppose."

"That is absolutely _not_ an option. Have you been listening, Harry? I _can't_ spend the rest of eternity sitting by the fire trying to picture Bellatrix Lestrange."

Harry shrunk away from Voldemort. He had to admit, though, that he couldn't imagine an existence like Voldemort's either.

Voldemort's face softened immediately. "Don't do that," he said quickly, reaching out to Harry. "Please don't run away from me." Pale fingers grabbed Harry's robes and gently tugged Harry closer. Harry allowed this only because Voldemort looked desperate, and the touch sent an admittedly pleasurable _vibration_ through his body where the horcrux belo—had been.

When Harry was sitting upright and a little bit closer to Voldemort, Voldemort took the liberty of sliding closer to Harry. "There," he said. The sides of their legs were touching. "I really, _really_ need you, Harry."

"For wh—"

He was cut off by Voldemort's lips. They were just as soft as the lips of his sixteen-year-old counterpart, but the tongue that slipped between them seemed to have a much better idea of what it was doing. For the first time in his life, Harry wondered if Voldemort had had a girlfriend before he'd become the Dark Lord... Maybe Voldemort had had a _boyfriend_... He tried to push the image of Tom Riddle snogging Theodore Nott's father (who looked disturbingly like Theodore in the visual) out of his mind, with limited success until Voldemort nipped at his lip slightly.

Voldemort was grinning when he pulled back. "I can taste you!" he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"You can _taste_ me...?"

"Yes! Try to keep up, Harry. I can't taste the tea or—or _anything_ really, but... but _you_. I can taste you." His mouth went over to Harry's throat and began to kiss it. Voldemort's arms wrapped around Harry's torso and Voldemort clung to him like a frightened child. "...Your saliva," Voldemort said between kisses. "...Your sweat." He grinned and gave a long lick over to Harry's throat. "...Your—semen, too, I think..." His eyes glittered.

Harry didn't say anything.

Voldemort chuckled. "And you're so _warm_, Harry!" he said, stretching the 'so' into a slight moan. He curled up on Harry's chest, still looking very much like a child, and stared up at Harry with wide eyes that Harry didn't think were _supposed_ to look innocent.

"What do you want?" Harry asked tensely.

"I want..." Voldemort worried his lip slightly with his teeth, but his eyes continued to sparkle. "...to get _very_ close to you, and to—to taste you a little more, while you warm me up..."

Harry sighed.

That seemed good enough for Voldemort. He instantly set to undoing Harry's robes. Harry watched passively. He knew that the most rational and _ethical_ thing to do was to shove Voldemort off him, to pinch himself, and to go get back in bed with his wife and hope for another nightmare when he next fell asleep. He really, really knew that.

Voldemort didn't push Harry's robes completely off when he got them all undone. Instead, he vanished Harry's pants and got started on his own clothes.

_God_, if Harry's therapist could see him now. If she even _knew_ about these... dreams. Harry would probably never be allowed to let it go. It would be awkward discussions about Harry's suppressed childhood trauma and how Voldemort is a stand-in for Harry's father every week until the day Harry died.

A young, naked Dark Lord threw himself into Harry's lap and practically _cuddled_ him for a moment. Voldemort's pale, naked arse brushed against Harry's cock, arousing him instantly, and Voldemort's tongue slipped into Harry's mouth with absolutely no argument from Harry. Harry's heart jumped slightly when he saw Voldemort pull out his wand, but Voldemort only cast a lubricating spell on Harry's cock.

It was cool for half of a second before Voldemort lowered himself down on Harry's cock. Harry gasped, and Voldemort bit his lip lightly. Harry's scar didn't hurt, it _tingled_, and something within Harry's own soul hummed contentedly as though it were seeing an old friend for the first time in decades.

Harry grunted.

"Tell me I'm better than your wife," Voldemort whispered, sending small jolts of pleasure through Harry's body as he fucked himself in short strokes.

"Fuck you."

"You already are." Voldemort wrapped his arms tightly around Harry, and Harry watched Voldemort's body rise and fall on his cock. His sharp breaths made Harry smile.

"Too big for you?"

Voldemort rose almost completely off Harry's cock, which was now slick with precum as well as lube, and he actually let out a whimper as he brought himself back down. "Oh _yes_, Mr. Potter," he said, staring at Harry with wide, innocent eyes. "You're so _big_, I just don't—" He let out a legitimate cry as Harry's fist found its way into his hair and tugged, but when Harry let go, Voldemort was laughing.

Their eyes locked.

"_Say it_. You come back to me for a reason, Harry."

"You're a better fuck than my wife," Harry said through gasps as Voldemort sped up again. "If that's how you're determining your self worth these days, you've fallen pretty hard."

"My fall is hardly the hardest thing in this room," Voldemort said in Harry's ear. "What would your fan-club say if they knew you had wet-dreams about Lord Voldemort? What would your _children_ say if they knew you kept having wet-dreams about a _teenager_."

Harry grabbed Voldemort's shoulders and shoved him sideways on the sofa, reveling in the gasps of pain. Without ever slipping out of Voldemort, he switched their positions so that he was on top and fucked Voldemort harder than he'd ever have dreamt of fucking Ginny. His muscles were tightening and he could feel his orgasm approaching, but he was going to use the little time he had left to see to it that Voldemort couldn't stand for _days_.

Voldemort moved his legs to give Harry more room and quickly brushed the tears from his eyes. He pressed on through is own gasps. "It—It misses you, y—you know. Nnnnng. Almost as much as—you miss it."

Harry just moaned as his cock slipped in an out of Voldemort, hitting his prostate and making the nineteen-year-old body beneath buck with pleasure and struggle almost playfully against Harry's hold.

The slight tears forming in Voldemort's eyes only served to make them glossier and even _more_ innocent-looking. With a perfectly steady voice, he managed to say, "Say that you miss me, Harry."

Harry came harder than he'd come in a very long time. He hovered over Voldemort on shaking arms and didn't say a word.

Voldemort reached up and pulled him down, tucking the edges of Harry's open robes underneath his own back, so that Harry was lying on Voldemort's chest with his arms around him, both panting and sharing each other's body heat. They remained there like that for quite a long time, completely still and silent and tired, Voldemort not once objecting to the fact that he hadn't come yet. If Harry hadn't already _been_ asleep, he was sure he would have fallen asleep.

"Harry," Voldemort said very softly after five minutes or so, "There's a book in the Forbidden Section of the Hogwarts library entitled _Soul Magic_. I need you to read that, okay? I'm not sure where else you could find it, but try having your daughter check it out and mail it to you."

Harry grunted, tiredly and noncommittally.

"Promise me, Harry."

"Yes. Fine, Gi—" He stopped, remembering suddenly that he wasn't speaking to his wife.

Voldemort laughed.

Harry pinched himself hard.

He woke up ten seconds before the coffee pot beeped. He stared down at a picture of his eldest child taking his first steps.

_Soul Magic_? Harry wasn't sure if the book was real or not. If it was real, it wouldn't be anything good. The forbidden section of the Hogwarts library... Neville would write Lily a note if Harry asked... If it was real, then did that make Voldemort real in some way? It was best to never even check.

It was time Harry started taking Daedalus' dreamless sleep potions.


End file.
